With a quick perception that it was intended to relate to what she had asked, little Florence sat down on a stool at the nurse's feet, looking up into her face.
"Once upon a time," said Richards, "there was a lady--a very good lady, and her little daughter dearly loved her--who, when God thought it right that it should be so, was taken ill, and died. Died, never to be seen again by anyone on earth, and was buried in the ground where the trees grow."
"The cold ground," said the child, shuddering.
"No, the warm ground," returned Polly, seizing her advantage, "where the ugly little seeds turn into beautiful flowers, and into grass, and into corn, and I don't know what all besides. Where good people turn into bright angels, and fly away to heaven!"
The child who had drooped her head, raised it again, and sat looking at her intently.
"So; let me see," said Polly, not a little flurried between this earnest scrutiny, her desire to comfort the child, her sudden success, and her very slight confidence in her own powers. "So, when this lady died, she went to God! and she prayed to Him, this lady did," said Polly, affecting herself beyond measure, being heartily in earnest, "to teach her little daughter to be sure of that in her heart; and to know that she was happy there, and loved her still; and to hope and try--oh, all her life--to meet her there one day, never, never, never to part any more."
"It was my mamma!" exclaimed the child, springing up, and clasping her around the neck.
"And the child's heart," said Polly, drawing her to her breast, "the little daughter's heart was so full of the truth of this, that even when she heard it from a strange nurse that couldn't tell it right, but was a poor mother herself, and that was all, she found a comfort in it--didn't feel so lonely--sobbed and cried upon her bosom--took kindly to the baby lying in her lap--and--there, there, there!" said Polly, smoothing the child's curls, and dropping tears upon her. "There, poor dear!"
"Oh, well, Miss Floy! and won't your pa be angry neither?" cried a quick voice at the door, proceeding from a short, brown womanly girl of fourteen, with little snub nose, and black eyes like jet beads, "when it was tickerlerly given out that you wasn't to go and worrit the nurse."
"She don't worry me," was the surprised rejoinder of Polly. "I'm very fond of children. Miss Florence has just come home, hasn't she?"